HERE WE GO FROM HIGHLAND TO HO

We have been in Ghana 2 weeks today.  We were picked up at the airport by President and Sister Daniel Judd (mission president for Ghana Accra Mission) and taken to the mission home. At first we stayed in Accra and the ancillary building by the Temple for about 4 days and were oriented to the mission, met some mission leaders and had a beautiful session at the beautiful Temple. There was a large  (about 200) contingent of members from Ivory Coast  (Cot de’Ivoire) who came to spend the week in the Temple.  They all speak French so we did a lot of smiling.  We did cross paths with several people we knew or knew us including Elder and Sister Jim and Paula Elmer (he is the Area Medical Director and grew up in Mike’s ward in Dallas).  Then on Saturday we journeyed up to Ho. Ho is in the Volta region. It is a very large valley around the Volta River. Ho is about 80 miles away from Accra, but it takes a good 3 hours to get there because you go through a million (well, maybe only 50) villages. Every village has very large speed bumps to go over so the travel is very slow. Along the way in these villages are markets and small shops in tiny shack-like buildings. They sell about anything you can think of from clothes to mangoes, tires to sunglasses. Then there are women, men, and children carrying you name it on their heads. It is amazing! Sometimes they have their goods in large and I mean LARGE bowls and some times on large trays, and some times boxes or laundry baskets. And sometimes they don’t have a container at all. You see loads of wood, reeds, fabric, and poles being carried on their heads. They walk as if there was nothing up there.

Very few people have cars. So most everyone walks, takes a taxi, or a bus called a trotros. So there are taxis and trotros everywhere.  There are also hundreds of motorcycles that have no regulation as to where they go or when.  They say there are traffic rules, but I am not sure anyone knows what they are. I do know that they stop at red lights and go on green. Its kind of like getting in and out of traffic going to or from a BYU football game! There is a lot of honking, but it is not usually because they are annoyed at you, it is just to let people know who are walking that they want your business or that they are behind you. They are hardly ever rude. They are just going about their business. But it makes for very interesting driving.

We are very lucky to live in a nice house. I have compared it to a houseboat. It has a small fridge and stove, you have to drink out of the right faucet and sometimes the lights go out and the water goes off. The big difference is that instead of water and red sand, we have gray dirt. And instead of fish and coyotes we have chickens and goats.

The people are delightful and very beautiful. They are very poor and very kind. Most people live in very small houses, thatched huts or just a lean to (SP?) Even if they live in a house they cook their meals outside on the fire. Many of the houses are unfinished. The will build walls and roof and even partitions for rooms. Then they will “finish” one room and live in it until they finish the other rooms. So you see a lot of unfinished buildings. We have love meeting them. We adore the children. They are so cute.

We are working with a small branch ( Ho First Branch) , but we also have assignment in the district.  Our District President is President Tyson who lives in Kpong (pronounced pong). We are very busy almost every day all day. We try to be in by dark, but that has only happened a few times.. There are people everywhere on the streets at night so it is scary to drive because you might hit someone walking or another vehicle trying to miss someone walking. 

We have met some wonderful people including a man at the baggage claim who came and told us he had seen “Book of Mormon” the play and kind of chuckled.  Mike told him now he had seen the play he should read the book and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon with the mission number inside.  There was another man at the mobile phone store who is named Joy (many have great names like this including Precious, Happy, Saviour, Prosper, Wisdom, Courage…) and teaches Mechanical Engineering at a local school (Polytechnic in Ho).  Also there is an older woman named Anna (we call her Sista Anna).  She had begun nursing training, but decided to be a teacher and taught domestics (home economics) for 38 years and did fashion design work (sewing traditional clothing and teaching it). She is not a member yet.  We also had the privilege of taking a young man to the MTC in Tema (outside of Accra). His name is Israel Krekany and he is going to one of the Nigerian missions.  Today we were privileged to spend time with Kwesi Dugbatey.  We had met him at the home of the Huff family in Centerville in April and he has a fascinating story of conversion and life history.  He has written his story and the Church has it but it is not yet published.  Briefly, he was Minister of Health for Ghana and the personal physician to the President of Ghana over 30 years ago, but was forced to flee for his life when a coup overthrew the president.   After about 4 years, Kwesi ended up in St. Louis where he joined the Church through some miraculous encounters. Due to family issues, he returned to live in Ghana in 2006 and is now involved in helping to establish a school of public health near Kpong. He took us t his ancestral home and we met his 104 year old mother and saw the place where he was raised.  He had come from a family of 14 children (his father was an African Arab Polygamist with 6 wives).  He is a marvelous man with great conversion to the Gospel of Christ.  His beautiful home is decorated with pictures of the prophet, the Savior and missionary booklets on the plan of Salvation. 

We have also already had multiple experiences that let us know that Heavenly Father is watching over us and caring for us.  Our living conditions, travel safety including a few close calls, having 2 flat tires in 2 weeks but in places where we could safely change them and then get the damaged one fixed (we hope it is fixed), meeting very kind, loving people, sitting in Sacrament meeting and other meetings where nothing but pure doctrine is taught by those with deep conviction and testimony.  We know for sure that this is where we should be  and this is what we should be doing.  It is the work of our loving Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ.  We love it here.